[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 132 (Tuesday, September 20, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: September 20, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
      VERMONT WINNER OF VFW VOICE OF DEMOCRACY SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM

                                 ______


                          HON. BERNARD SANDERS

                               of vermont

                    in the house of representatives

                      Tuesday, September 20, 1994

  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to submit the following for 
printing in the Congressional Record. The enclosed was written by 
Berianne Bramman of Barre, VT. She is the Vermont winner of the VFW 
Voice of Democracy Scholarship Program.

                        My Commitment to America

               (By Berianne Bramman, Post 790, Barre, VT)

       Imagine, if you will a small child who has gone out to eat 
     pizza with his parents. At the particular restaurant they've 
     gone to, there is an arcade game by the door which the small 
     child sees as soon as they arrive. The boy finishes his meal 
     before his parents, and asks his father for a quarter to go 
     play the game. The father, not paying close attention gives 
     the boy some money and sends him on his way. A few minutes 
     later, the boy exuberantly bounds back asking his father for 
     another quarter, and upon receiving, disappears again. As the 
     parents finish the meal, the father goes to find the boy. As 
     the father reaches him, the boy cries ``Come watch this.'' 
     The boy is just barely tall enough to reach the buttons and 
     he's striking them feverishly while the machine lets out all 
     these sounds. Boom. Boom. Bam. Kaboom. The father watching 
     him play, says to his son ``Wow! Did you see that?'' . . . 
     ``See what?'' the boy replied. He couldn't see the screen. He 
     had only been listening to the sounds. He only played half 
     the game, and had not seen the big picture.
    
    
       How many times have you said the Pledge of Allegiance, as a 
     child? How many of us actually know all the words to the 
     ``Star Spangled Banner''? What do you think while you are 
     watching fireworks on the Fourth of July?
       When answering that question, I, like many others, admit 
     that as a child, I didn't understand the feeling behind the 
     American flag. Granted, I know that pilgrims came across the 
     Atlantic to start a new life and that the 50 stars represent 
     the 50 states and the 13 stripes represent the 13 colonies. 
     But it wasn't until now, that I can grasp the emotion behind 
     all of those facts. I was only playing half the game. I had 
     not seen the big picture.
       T.S. Elliot once said ``At the end of all our exploring is 
     the return to where we started, and knowing that place for 
     the first time.''
       I now feel I'm beginning to see.
       For hundreds of years now, people have been coming to 
     America across land and sea, often leaving behind all their 
     belongings, their home, their friends and sometimes family 
     members. They come with only the clothes they are wearing and 
     an intense hopefulness. Why? They have come in hopes to gain 
     the privileges that I have taken for granted all of my life. 
     Things that I consider natural rights such as freedom of 
     religion, the freedom to decide what I want to do with my 
     life, the freedom of opinion and most important, the freedom 
     to voice that opinion. They have come for the hope that 
     America offers a hope for a better life.
       Countless men and women have given their lives for these 
     freedoms that I have never understood. They have died, shed 
     blood in agony, so that we, and all following generations, 
     can keep that hope with us.
       If we ignore all of these freedoms, if we take them all for 
     granted, it would be like slapping every one of those men and 
     women in the face. It would be like telling them that every 
     drop of blood, every loved one lost, every life freely given 
     to ensure our freedom was given in vain.
       So my commitment--OUR commitment to America, is to live 
     life to its fullest potential and to get everything we can 
     out of the freedoms we've been granted. ``Insist on joy, in 
     spite of everything'' as Tom Robbins once said. We need to 
     grasp those freedoms and use them. We must speak freely, 
     practice our religions, and most importantly, vote to ensure 
     the happiness of our lives and to keep the American hope 
     alive. We must grasp that hope and turn it into our futures 
     to become what we will--Doctors, Judges, Presidents.
       We must set an example for the generations to come after 
     us, but most of all, we must find value and beauty in each 
     day that we have and make the most of it. There is an old 
     Hindu saying--``When you were born you cried, and the world 
     rejoiced. Live you life, so that when you die, you will 
     rejoice and the world will cry.'' That is my commitment to 
     America.

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